ing an Emmy Award for Boardwalk Empire If that
doesn’t pique your interest, I can’t do better than that
for awareness,” he says.

tacked on to the production. “We’re there from the very first kickoff meeting, discussing what will be the DVD or Blu- ray extras,” McGee says. “A happy thing is that we find the actors, directors and producers involved have such a good experience with HBO that they’re more than willing to get involved with the DVD and Blu-ray production.” According to McGee, one show in particular has broken creative ground with the on-disc extras: “On True Blood, the commentaries where the actors talk about a scene, we’ve put them in there as their characters talking with the commentary written by the script writer.”

More new shows in the pipeline Boardwalk Empire is one of the newest entries in the growing lineup of original HBO programs that Sue Naegle has developed since taking over as pres- ident of HBO Entertainment in 2008. Among the other shows premiered on her watch: True Blood, based on the Charlaine Harris series of vampire
tales; Treme, set in post-Katrina New Orleans; Bored
to Death, featuring the quirky comedy trio of
Jason Schwartzman, Zach Galifianakis and Ted
Danson; and Game of Thrones, a medieval fantasy
played out in the fictional world of Westeros.

Judging the success of new programs is not just
a matter of looking at the audience size and makeup
as reported by Nielsen ratings—the standard in audience measurement for television shows since the ’50s.

“For HBO, it’s not simply ratings,” says Naegle ina phone interview. “We look to see if we’re getting agood critical response, and if [a program] has sort of astickiness in the culture—if people are talking about it,blogging and writing about it; if journalists are payingattention to what we’re doing. All of that really mattersto us, because it’s a measure of quality. Of course, ithelps to be recognized by the Emmys and the GoldenGlobes, but it all goes back to the central message: Ithas to be excellent television.”Naegle is enthusiastic about three new HBOshows for 2012: Luck, starring Dustin Hoffman andNick Nolte in a horse-racing drama created by DavidMilch (Deadwood); Veep, featuring Julia Louis-Dreyfus in a comedy about the first woman vicepresident of the United States; and Girls, with LenaDunham and Allison Williams in a comedy about agroup of 20-somethings.

And the winner is ...

Will HBO be able to sustain the momentum of
its 10-year winning streak? Probably, given that the
network seems so adept at picking the right shows
to develop. Naegle does recognize that the TV industry is different now.

“The one thing that has changed since 2001,”she says, “is that there’s a lot more competition inoriginal programming on cable.”That being the case, it’s the viewers who win.They can all thank HBO for raising the bar on thequality of television programming. C

HBO on disc

For those who subscribe to HBO through aei eeBe rt rFor those who subscribe to HBO through alocal cable TV or satellite provider, a new featurecalled HBO Go allows subscribers to stream currentprograms, back episodes, movies and other HBOcontent directly to smartphones or tablets via dedi-cated apps.

lc tsuhearing word of mouth about a program or aboutBut subscription isn’t the only source for the pro-grams. McGee points out that about 60 percent ofthe people who purchase HBO programs released ondisc (DVD or Blu-ray) don’t subscribe to HBO. “Buthearing word of mouth about a program or aboutEmmy Awards and other prizes that a program haswon, they are prepared to go out, purchase it andenjoy it,” he notes. “Certainly the extras add to that.”

n cenjoy it,” he notes. “Certainly the extras add to that.”f s

rh t r“Extras” refers to the exclusive bonus features pro-duced to enhance the disc release of a series, minise-ries or movie. HBO’s research shows that the primaryreason viewers buy HBO titles is to have the programon a permanent basis, with the ability to access it atany time. People also report that the extras deepenboth their understanding of and connection with theprogram, and are an additional reason to purchase.

a eboth their understanding of and connection with theaue

DAVID SCHNEIDER

Those extras are not simply afterthoughts

The winning streak

A partial list of original HBO programs that have won EmmyAwards, 2002 to 2011. In the last 10 years HBO programshave received 991 nominations, resulting in 240 wins.